She feels the burn behind her eyes, and throughout time, and she screams
(on the inside, always on the inside-)
because she can see it, see it all.
Everything that ever was, is, and will be.
Could be.
She could do anything, be anything.
But she has a task to complete.
She needs to save him, her Doctor.
She would move heaven and earth for him, stop time and space, and destroy galaxies.
She would look into the heart of the TARDIS for him.
She would die for him.
But she doesn't have to. Not right now.
With a wave of her hand, she destroys an entire race, and with another she casts a message into the whole of time and space, to
herself.
To Rose.
Because she isn't Rose anymore.
She is so much more.
I am the Bad Wolf. I create myself.
She is the omniscient goddess of time itself, and her will, her wish, becomes truth. She can see everything now.
She knows she should warn him.
But it's all just so much.
The golden light courses through her veins and sinks into her bones.
She can see her death.
The Valiant Child will die in battle…
"You burn like the sun…"
And more-
You are not alone.
Don't vote for Saxon!
"There is something of the wolf in you…"
There is something on your back-
One will die.
But the light burns so bright and suddenly she knows, -she knows!-, why the stars cry, why they hurt, and why the universe
shudders at her name.
He will knock four times-
And she is screaming inside, screaming and burning brighter than a star. Her power comes at a price. The universe does not bend
at her will for free.
But then she feels the force slide away in a glorious cascade, into the one man who understands. He too knows why the sun and
moon weep, and he has wept alongside them.
She could stop him. With a snap, a whisper, a blink (don't blink) but she doesn't.
It is not yet her time to burn to ash.
The wolf howls with the coming of the night.
The wolf does not leave her, not completely. After all, they are one and the same.
She does not burn, but she feels warm. In her dreams she can still touch the golden light and hear the whispers of an infinite
number of voices. She can no longer see, but she still knows.
So she knows when her death is approaching.
But when it comes, Rose can now see that it is not an obsolete death, but a perpetual dying. She screams as the wolf howls, and
together they burn. It is an internal fire that she cannot even touch, but she uses it to hate and to love and to mourn and to cry
(on the outside, on the outside this time-)
He burns up a sun for her, she would burn up the Universe for him.
She would burn herself.
But not yet.
Not now.
So she quiets the fire, and the wolf sleeps.
She feels a shudder, and she knows it's a warning. So she relights the fire. The stars are going out.
She was a star once…
No, she was so much more.
There is something on your back-
One will die.
And it is not her, but Donna. Donna saves everything and destroys herself in the process. Rose Tyler knows how that feels, knows
how it feels to know, to see, to understand. She knows how it feels to burn so hard and bright that you burn out. And Donna
knew that for the Doctor you would do it all over again.
She is reunited with the Doctor, her Doctor. The wolf howls in joy. But as soon as they come together he tears her apart. She is
left in the wrong universe with the wrong man. She can't decide if this is good or bad. For the first time, he is human. For the first
time, she realizes with certainty, she is not. She is still so much more than a star, burning into infinity.
-she is the Bad Wolf, she creates herself-
They live happily together, and grow old. She does not cry (not now, not even on the inside) for the life she left behind, for the man
who left her behind. She decides that should be one of her many names; the Girl Who Got Left Behind. It is fitting.
But she does not cry, not even on the inside.
Not even when he dies.
And he does, as she knew he would. She cannot follow because she cannot die.
She is left behind again.
The wolf howls.
The Universe shudders. She feels it.
She has grown closer to the beast, to the wolf. She can see again, and there is a constant flame in her body. So she feels him, her
Doctor, when he desperately needs help. Everything is unraveling and he needs help but no one is there. Amy and Rory are gone.
River is dead. All his other companions have left.
He who always left everyone before is now left himself.
She knows the feeling.
She knows why the sun and moon weep and she has wept alongside them, on the inside and the outside. She sees and she
understands and she just knows, in the fiber of her being. She and Donna know that it was worth it, always worth it. She knows
that she would burn into infinity for him, and that infinity is both so long and so very, very short.
She howls and the wolf howls, and for the second time in her life she lets it in and they become one. She rips a hole in the fabric
of time and space itself, and crosses back into the Universe she knows like the back of her hand.
She feels it tremble at her name.
Rose!
Rose Tyler!
Bad Wolf!
Valiant Child!
The Girl Who Got Left Behind…
(again and again and again)
And she lets herself burn, burn with a new intensity and ferocity that scares even her. She burns into infinity for him, and
emblazons herself upon history, the sky, and time itself.
"Don't worry, my Doctor," she says to him, her voice layered in power, "I will keep you safe."
He once burnt up a sun for her. She would burn up everything for him.
Instead she burns up herself.
Now.
It's bright, but don't (don't blink) be afraid, don't cry.
You create yourself.
Again.
And when the ash and dust finally clear, and when he's caught her in his arms because she can no longer stand, she realizes that
she is no longer the star, and she is almost glad of it. She has exhausted all the oxygen needed for the fire. She is still the Bad
Wolf (always the Bad Wolf) but she is also the Rose.
You burnt like the sun…
"…but all I require is the moon," she whispers tenderly.
Because he is her moon, and the wolf howls.
She has burnt into infinity for him, and it is worth it, and Rose Tyler knows better than anyone:
Even infinity ends
"I love you, Rose," he says finally, for the first and last time, and then he cries:
on the inside and the outside.